Comments on: 10 Great Social Sites for Resume Building (My Input)

By: Jason Alba

Jason Alba — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:17:41 +0000

Great comments everyone…

@Walt – really good points. Interesting that you talk about your blog as the place you want people to end up at… similar to the discussion on my LinkedIn blog about the LinkedIn Profile being a destination, or a channel to your destination.

By: Glenn

Glenn — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 01:56:54 +0000

Resumes are so obsolete in a time when everything changes so fast. They need an upgrade.

Resumes only express “what you have done.” We need to put out more promotional materials that celebrate “what you can do.”

Moreover, managers have to change their hiring mindset. I’ve changed mine when I look for people. Seeing what somebody did 5 years ago doesn’t interest me. Seeing what they can do today and how they can resolve current problems? Now you’re talking!

That’s the kind of Web sites to invest time in, where you show what you can deliver now while highlighting the latest things you’ve learned.

By: Sharon Wilson

Sharon Wilson — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:04:13 +0000

With some practice and dedication it its possible to manage profiles on a lot of the social networking sites. The thing is, you don’t need to be on all of them. Pick 2-3 that would work ofr you the best and run with those.

By: Karen Swim

Karen Swim — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 16:29:18 +0000

Jason, I completely agree with you. I take the same approach with job seekers as I do with my marketing clients – do not attempt to be everywhere at once. I advise picking one or two social media tools based on where your audience is hanging out. For job seekers, I firmly believe LinkedIn should be on everyone’s list. I also use VisualCV and love that you can link that to your LI profile. The problem with being everywhere is that it’s exactly like being the jack of all trades and master of none. Pick one or two tools and then MAXIMIZE them.

By: Walter Feigenson

Walter Feigenson — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 06:48:34 +0000

There’s a difference between resume and profile, at least to me. I only have my resume at one place, available for download. I have my profile at many places. And yes, it’s a challenge to update them all, but I don’t – I just update the ones where I get some response.

I came to this conclusion by watching how the different sites get rated by Google. In some cases, I thought the sites were strategic. Example: I have my profile – at least a version of it – at younoodle.com. It’s an interesting site, it generally ranks high on my Google results, and I’ve gotten two legitimate leads from people who’ve found my profile there.

So, at some level, I’d have to disagree with you, but consider that I’m possibly obsessive in my personal branding efforts (or lax, depending on your perspective). I recommend a variety of sites based on how I’ve seen them impact my Google results. Just for the record, I typically talk about Ziggs, Ziki, Naymz, ZoomInfo, and sometimes Younoodle. Ziki is especially easy, since it pulls your profile from LinkedIn, which is home base for professional branding.

And even with all this, the real leverage comes from publishing, as you know and preach. In the last few days, my blog has started to move to the top of my Google searches, above most of these other sites. That’s very gratifying, because on my blog, people see what I want them to see, in some depth. It’s the heart of my personal branding efforts, and it used to show up on page 4-5 of Google searches.

So yeah, get your resume out as Jason describes, get some profiles done at these other sites, then start writing and promoting. It really doesn’t take much time at all to keep the *important* sites up to date.

By: Sophie Lagacé

Sophie Lagacé — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:53:29 +0000

I agree with you entirely. With resumes strewn about the Web, you run the risk of staleness unless you spend a lot of time and effort making sure updates are done everywhere at once. Have you noticed how unintuitive it can be to update or remove your information from some of the big job boards? In addition, you can come across as a little too desperate if your resume is plastered all over the Web.